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Sun Microsystems & Oracle – News and Questions

I’ve just received the newsletter from Sun Microsystems Switzerland regarding the acquisition/merger of Sun into Oracle.

On April 20, 2009, Oracle announced a definitive agreement to acquire Sun Microsystems. The proposed transaction is subject to Sun stockholder approval (JAVA), certain regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Until the deal closes, each company will continue to operate independently and it is business as usual.

And ..

Sun’s core innovations such as Java, Solaris and SPARC are some of the computer industry’s best known brands and most widely deployed technologies. Oracle Fusion Middleware is built on top of Java and we believe that following the closing of the acquisition Oracle will be able to ensure continued innovation and investment in Java technology for the benefit of customers and the Java community.

The Solaris operating system and SPARC servers are the leading platform for the Oracle database. With the proposed acquisition of Sun, we believe Oracle will be able to optimize the Oracle database for some of the unique and innovative features of Solaris. Like Sun, Oracle supports many platforms and also remains committed to Linux and other open platforms and will continue to support and enhance its strong industry partnerships.

But not a single word about MySQL. What does this mean to the popular Open Source Database System? Has Oracle any interest in it? Will it vanish? Or should the former chief engineer and boss of MySQL AB take it back?
Can Oracle actually develop such a big open source software? Questions we will get answers sooner or later, better or worse.